The only movie that has any "essential information" is End of Evangelion (which was what the end of the TV series was intended to be anyways). Death and Rebirth offer nothing new if you have watched the Director's Cut of the final few episodes and the Rebuild series does not contribute anything to the original series (so far at-least). The video game doesn't really offer anything beyond things one could figure out on ones own and things that doesn't need to be explained to begin with (namely the origin of Adam and Lilith).
There is a few things about your review I don't get:
1) One of the main architect behind the events within the show is a group of religious fanatics who are trying to revert the creation of individual humans. Another character is trying to create a god. The existence and metaphysical properties of souls is a major plot element. Central themes are the origin and purpose of life as well as if one can truly believe in anything with certainty. How would religion not show it's face in all of this? (And also if the religions elements was only for flavor why is that wrong? The Big Lebowski has a lot of bowling imagery for no particular reason. Would you make the same complaint about that? Why is there such a double standard when it comes to religious imagery?)
2) You didn't like the characters, fair enough. But you complain about Shinji being static (which I disagree with, although his development becomes most apparent in EOE which you may not have seen). So... what is inherently wrong with that? I'd rather have a deeply explored and believable static character than one that "develops" from one shallow archetype to another just for the sake development. Most people don't constantly change their personalty either, so demanding that all important characters should have this type of character development is unrealistic.
3) You say the show is hard to follow/poorly explained. While it's a common complaint I have never understood why. At first I speculated that it was because people watched the dub (which mess up several key points), but I've seen people who only saw it subbed also complaining about things that was said outright by the characters "not being explained". (The most common one is why SEELE attack NERV in EOE, which I remember being explain at least twice in the presiding TV series). However, if you have only seen the TV-series and not End of Evangelion that might be why. The two should not really be considered separate things. Shows like Serial Experiments Lain and Paranoia Agent I had to watch multiple times to understand completely while Evangelion I got on the first viewing (apart from a few minor details). Sure some things are implied rather than explicitly stated, but these are minor details unimportant to the main plot (like who exactly Unit-00's soul is from) and some questions are unanswered, but those are ones who would distract from the main plot and themes (like Adam and Lilith's origins and who shot Kaji). But considering that a major topic in Evangelion is that life is not going to explain itself and how every discover we make can seem to raise as many questions as they answer, this is (if maybe natively unsatisfactory) highly thematically appropriate.
(Side note: While it is a good show I don't see how Game of Thrones is particularly convention-defying, but that's neither here nor there.)
(I meant "narratively unsatisfactory" not "natively unsatisfactory".)
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I don't like it
I was pretty late to the Evangelion party. As I've gotten older I've found that I am developing more of a taste for works that defy conventions like Game of Thrones. So I thought it was time to try the mother of all convention defying anime.
I was very disappointed.
The least controversial complaint I have is the uneven animation. The battle scenes are well done by 90s standards and are creative, but so much of the budget was blown early on that we ended up with long scenes of just static screens that are some of the most boring images ever put to television. And this lead to the last 5 or so episodes being horribly rushed. The final angel could have been the series' saving grace, but he was just creepy and his entire arc lasted only one episode, killing the emotional impact.
My other complaints are the ones that seem to have split the anime community. Disappointment that the overuse of religious imagery doesn't amount to much more than 'it looks coo and sounds cryptic', disappointment that so much essential information is only in the movies or even only explained in a videogame, ect.
I could have lived with all of those flaws if not for my main complaint, the characters. In the entire cast the only characters I like at all are Misato, her spy boyfriend and one of Shinji's friends at school, though I'm judging the latter solely on potential. It only took a few episodes for me to start really disliking Shinji, and Asuka as well when she was introduced. The main characters seemed especially static to me. Asuka at least changed as she lost her confidence and slipped into despair, but it seemed like Shinji was exactly the same character in the final episodes as he was in the beginning. There were also characters who could have been interesting that were unceremoniously thrown away in the middle of the show.
The only part of Evangelion I was able to get into was the opening theme, one of the better anime openings I've heard. But the lackluster characters and poorly explained plot kept me from getting into the show itself, even when there were some truly epic battles going on.
I suppose Evangelion deserves credit for pushing boundaries and paving the way for superior imitators, but on its own merits I found it to be unenjoyable.